Journey to the Centre of the Earth

As irascible scholar Professor Lidenbrock pores over a rare Icelandic tome, he discovers a scrap of parchment with cryptic writing tucked away between the ancient pages. And when his nephew, Axel, finally breaks the writings secret code, he learns of a hidden underground passageway that may lead deep into the center of the earth.

Despite Axels misgivings, he and the obsessed Lidenbrock travel to Iceland and, with a guide named Hans, set out on a perilous expedition in the course of which the trio will encounter an extraordinary new world of extinct yet living species, an underground sea, and gigantic, battling monsters.

Filled with the authentic detail and startling immediacy Jules Verne labored to bring to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth is the fantastic adventure that secured Vernes reputation as the premier writer of speculative fiction.

Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Classics)
by Thomas Hardy

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Rosemarie Morgan with Shannon Russell.